An Ethnographic Study of Allotmenteering: Practising Sustainability?

In an era where global climate change, ecological degradation and the depletion of natural resources have become increasingly prevalent, the need to identify ways in which we can pursue more sustainable ways of living and conserve an ecological balance has become of great importance in society. The pernicious effects that society’s (global) food production and consumption practices have on the environment is one prominent area of concern. Much of the existing literature that has explored environmentally responsible consumption has been preoccupied with developing an understanding of the environmentally responsible consumer, the social, symbolic and political significance of environmentally responsible consumption and the potentiality of alternative food systems to alleviate the environmental consequences of our globalised food system and other issues concerned with sustainability on a broader level. Conversely, very few studies have drawn attention to everyday practices and the ways in which consumers engage with environmental issues on an everyday, practical level. This is crucial to gaining an insight into the ways in which we can envisage change and naturalise more environmentally responsible ways of living into routine, everyday consumption practices. To remedy this gap, this thesis explores the practice of allotmenteering from a practicetheoretical perspective and attempts to advance our understanding of the ways in which consumers engage with environmental issues on a day-to-day basis. Based upon an ethnographic approach, this study develops a rich, in-depth understanding of embodied, (mainly) skilled practitioners, processes of ‘doing’ allotmenteering and other practices embedded in the practice of allotmenteering. This study contributes to the field of environmentally responsible consumption by demonstrating how allotmenteers engage in environmentally responsible consumption patterns unintentionally. More specifically, it shows how these consumption patterns transpire through allotmenteers’ close intimate engagement with nature and through the ways in which they personally invest themselves; their time, energy and effort into processes of nurturing and domesticating nature. Thirdly, it shows how the practice of allotmenteering has the potential to trigger more unsustainable consumption patterns. These findings have implications for the ways in which we understand and make sense of environmentally responsible consumption

The Little Book of Plastics in Everyday Life

What this Little Book tells you The purpose of this Little Book is to provide a holistic but condensed overview of the key aspects of plastics as they are produced, consumed and disposed of in contemporary consumer culture. We centre attention not just on the materiality of plastics but also on their meanings and how they come to be experienced and lived with in daily life

The Origins of African Plasmodium vivax; Insights from Mitochondrial Genome Sequencing

Plasmodium vivax, the second most prevalent of the human malaria parasites, is estimated to affect 75 million people annually. It is very rare, however, in west and central Africa, due to the high prevalence of the Duffy negative phenotype in the human population. Due to its rarity in Africa, previous studies on the phylogeny of world-wide P. vivax have suffered from insufficient samples of African parasites. Here we compare the mitochondrial sequence diversity of parasites from Africa with those from other areas of the world, in order to investigate the origin of present-day African P. vivax. Mitochondrial genome sequencing revealed relatively little polymorphism within the African population compared to parasites from the rest of the world. This, combined with sequence similarity with parasites from India, suggests that the present day African P. vivax population in humans may have been introduced relatively recently from the Indian subcontinent. Haplotype network analysis also raises the possibility that parasites currently found in Africa and South America may be the closest extant relatives of the ancestors of the current world population. Lines of evidence are adduced that this ancestral population may be from an ancient stock of P. vivax in Africa

Maternal common mental disorders and infant development in Ethiopia : the P-MaMiE Birth Cohort

Background: Chronicity and severity of early exposure to maternal common mental disorders (CMD) has been associated with poorer infant development in high-income countries. In low- and middle-income countries (LAMICs), perinatal CMD is inconsistently associated with infant development, but the impact of severity and persistence has not been examined. Methods: A nested population-based cohort of 258 pregnant women was identified from the Perinatal Maternal Mental Disorder in Ethiopia (P-MaMiE) study, and 194 (75.2%) were successfully followed up until the infants were 12 months of age. Maternal CMD was measured in pregnancy and at two and 12 months postnatal using the WHO Self-Reporting Questionnaire, validated for use in this setting. Infant outcomes were evaluated using the Bayley Scales of Infant Development. Results: Antenatal maternal CMD symptoms were associated with poorer infant motor development ( β ^ -0.20; 95% CI: -0.37 to -0.03), but this became non-significant after adjusting for confounders. Postnatal CMD symptoms were not associated with any domain of infant development. There was evidence of a dose-response relationship between the number of time-points at which the mother had high levels of CMD symptoms (SRQ ≥ 6) and impaired infant motor development ( β ^ = -0.80; 95%CI -2.24, 0.65 for ante- or postnatal CMD only, β ^ = -4.19; 95%CI -8.60, 0.21 for ante- and postnatal CMD, compared to no CMD; test-for-trend χ213.08(1), p < 0.001). Although this association became non-significant in the fully adjusted model, the β ^ coefficients were unchanged indicating that the relationship was not confounded. In multivariable analyses, lower socio-economic status and lower infant weight-for-age were associated with significantly lower scores on both motor and cognitive developmental scales. Maternal experience of physical violence was significantly associated with impaired cognitive development. Conclusions: The study supports the hypothesis that it is the accumulation of risk exposures across time rather than early exposure to maternal CMD per se that is more likely to affect child development. Further investigation of the impact of chronicity of maternal CMD upon child development in LAMICs is indicated. In the Ethiopian setting, poverty, interpersonal violence and infant undernutrition should be targets for interventions to reduce the loss of child developmental potential.Peer Reviewe

Randomized controlled trial of molnupiravir SARS-CoV-2 viral and antibody response in at-risk adult outpatients

Viral clearance, antibody response and the mutagenic effect of molnupiravir has not been elucidated in at-risk populations. Non-hospitalised participants within 5 days of SARS-CoV-2 symptoms randomised to receive molnupiravir (n = 253) or Usual Care (n = 324) were recruited to study viral and antibody dynamics and the effect of molnupiravir on viral whole genome sequence from 1437 viral genomes. Molnupiravir accelerates viral load decline, but virus is detectable by Day 5 in most cases. At Day 14 (9 days post-treatment), molnupiravir is associated with significantly higher viral persistence and significantly lower anti-SARS-CoV-2 spike antibody titres compared to Usual Care. Serial sequencing reveals increased mutagenesis with molnupiravir treatment. Persistence of detectable viral RNA at Day 14 in the molnupiravir group is associated with higher transition mutations following treatment cessation. Viral viability at Day 14 is similar in both groups with post-molnupiravir treated samples cultured up to 9 days post cessation of treatment. The current 5-day molnupiravir course is too short. Longer courses should be tested to reduce the risk of potentially transmissible molnupiravir-mutated variants being generated. Trial registration: ISRCTN3044803